Upon an after inquiry I was told that a funeral had lately taken place here, at which Friend Jonathan was the presiding attendant. But in preparation for this ceremony they had found so much difficulty in stubbing up the strong nettles, and digging the roots to form a decent grave; and it was after all so difficult to find comfortable standing-room about the grave, that I have ever since concluded that Mr. Dent must have been disgusted with it, as, upon depositing their lost friend in the earth, he, as spokesman, thought it unnecessary to make any observations, and he recommended that they should at once cover the body up; and so it was done.

That Mr. Dent had any antipathy to the church I do not know, but that he had a great dislike to paying unnecessary fees I have a good recollection of. Before his death he requested that his body should be deposited in his own garden; and his request was attended to by his nephew.

After the old gentleman's death, the present Mr. Dent, with a praiseworthy attention, repaired and restored in the Elizabethan style the old dilapidated dwelling-house and homestead where his uncle lived. And I one day paid a visit to the grave, which is an unpretending ridge on a well-mown grass-plat, and which, with the house and ground, appeared to be properly attended to; and so, I presume, it continues to be.

Wm. T. Hesleden.

J. H. M., in bringing forward Baskerville as an example of this unusual occurrence, says, that "he directed he should be buried under a windmill near his garden." In a volume of Epitaphs, printed at Ipswich in 1806, once the property of Archdeacon Nares, and containing several MS. notes by him, Baskerville's is given, with a note by the editor, in which he is stated to have been "inurned according to his own desire in a conical building near his late widow's house." The epitaph, written by Baskerville himself, commences with these lines—

"Stranger,
Beneath this cone, in unconsecrated ground,
A friend to the liberties of mankind directed
His body to be inurned."

The expression in each case, respecting the place of his interment, seems scarcely strong enough for us to conclude it was a windmill. Perhaps J. H. M. will kindly favour me with the authority for his statement. Nares has made the following note on the epitaph at the bottom of the page:

"I heard John Wilkes, after praising Baskerville, add, 'But he was a terrible infidel; he used to shock me!'"

R. W. Elliot.

Clifton.